The invention relates to a storage container for at least one hypodermic needle. The connecting end of the needle has connectors which are complementary to connectors on the tip of an injection instrument, one of the connectors having radial elasticity and means for converting an axial force exerted between the needle and the injection instrument into at least one radial component capable of deforming the elastic connectors, and with a housing designed to hold the hypodermic needle in a determinate position and an opening affording access to the housing.
Hypodermic needles of this type are found on the market. Fixing them to the tip of an injection instrument is easier and faster because it is no longer necessary to screw in the needle, mere pressure along the axis sufficing to make the complementary connectors engage. Theoretically it should also be possible to separate them by traction along the axis, but the absence of purchase makes this operation difficult and it is performed in the traditional manner, by unscrewing.
In the case of chronic disorders, the patient may perform the injection himself. It is therefore important that the means of storing, handling and disposing of injection needles be not only safe, but relatively foolproof and easy to understand and manipulate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,968,021 (Oct. 19, 1999) describes a magazine for storing injection needles. The user inserts an injection instrument in a predetermined radial orientation to the magazine. The needle can be released from the injection instrument by applying pressure at predetermined radial locations on the magazine.
International publication WO 92/13585 (Aug. 20, 1992) describes a needle container comprising a conical housing. Prior to use, the needle is held by frictional forces at the open end of the conical housing. After use of the needle, the user can re-insert the needle into the conical housing, pushing the needle below elastic tabs at the open end of the conical housing. The resilient tabs snap back after the needle is fully inserted, preventing the needle from being withdrawn.
In all of the prior art cases, when the neddle is fixed at the outlet end of the syringe, the user is no longer protected from injury by the needle. Several injection devices have been proposed to obviate this inconvenience and comprise to this end a mechanism for effecting the injection, which is movable by a cocking means counter to the force of a spring into a cocking position, from which it can be released to effect an injection process, so as to act upon a piston containing fluid to be injected.
A device of this type is disclosed for example in EP 0 359 761. The housing of this device is approximately the shape of an oversize fountain pen, and the injection needle is inside the device as long as an injection process has not to be effected. The injection device has a mechanism used to effect the injection process, which mechanism can be moved by means of a cocking element counter to the force of a spring into a cocked position from which it can be released in order to effect an injection process. This mechanism moves axially the hypodermic needle in order it protrudes from the forward end of the housing of the device which is put into contact whith the skin of the patient so that it is inserted through the skin and the liquid is injected.
With such a device, the means for connecting the needle to the injection device is inside the housing so that the user cannot see the precise position of the needle to be connected to the injection device, since it is hidden from sight by the housing of the injection device.
There remains a need for a safe and simple system for needle storage, handling and disposal, in particular for injection devices of the above-mentionned type.